Kennedy-Western Equals Degree Mill

Of course the 17% figure could mean that of the people who sign up, 83% read this forum, or gather other information (or move to California!) and drop out.

John Bear, who once met with a man who claimed
to be a former employee of K-WU, and who claimed
to have stolen their trash over a period of many
months, and who claimed to have hired a bunch of
UCLA graduate students to reassemble the shredded
(in one direction only; let that be a lesson) documents,
and who showed me what appeared to be some
quite amazing 'secret' communications with people
ranging from California regulators to agents in Asia.
K-WU knows of this person, and correctly identifies him
as a former diploma mill operator and, not surprisingly,
denies all his allegations. I encouraged this
person to go public with his materials. He sent 20 pounds
of documents to 60 Minutes, but he wouldn't give
them his real name, much less agree to be interviewed on
camera, so they did not follow up. Unless this
person does go public with what he claims he has,
I'm afraid that Mr. T and others will have to wait for my
posthumous edition for details.

 

Re: My Experiences

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This is the nightmare:

A foe undaunted by and impervious to facts. Like an unquenchable, threatening fire (my son left yesterday to fight one of several in Oregon) which goes on destroying despite all correct attempts to put it out.

Keep on fooling people, keep on taking their money, keep on burning up their resources. While I particularly depise underhandedness in religious schools (here in the US even "faith" that steals is protected), I save some ire for posters who are determined and probably salaried to aggrandize less than wonderful secular institutions too.

Your're soon to be a K-W Alum o boy,then!

 

Thank you for that post Dr. Bear. It seem like we may never know the truth... just like Deep Throat. However, nobody (2 people) seem to want to come forward to corrobrate the trash.

California never ceases to amaze me. The state protects it citizens against schools like KW yet it has in the past left the barn door with open for abuse of its citizens in the practice of engineeing. It wasn't too many years ago that California adopted standardized exams for liscensing professional engineers. A collegue of mine recently retired from the Building Automation business. For years he had a PE from California in Control Systems. He renewed it several times and he had to attest as to what portion of his income was earned in California. However to get this liscense he had to get a recommendation from 5 PEs concerning his charater and he had to attest to the fact he had 10 years of work experience in the field. Of course, here in Pennsylvania, he could not practice engineering since by comity, his liscense was not accepted. Nothing prevented him from going out to California and seal projects his firm was working on in California. All this responsiblity with out ever having so much as a BS degree. I am amazed... I for one am glad he never actually practiced engineering with his PE. He used it as a marketing tool to get contracts.

I realize that this has nothing to do directly with the KW thread. However bad people think of a KW degree, there are people out there with no degrees in a position to do public harm just as there are graduates from any school. And that really scares me.

Thank you Dr. Bear.

Regards,

Dick

 

Re: My Experiences

This has no meaning academically, nor any regarding the legitimacy of K-WU and its degrees.

The USDoE isn't delegating its authority to the states. The federal government abandons its responsibility in this area, thus leaving it to the individual states.

Accreditation is the standard used by the USDoE. Last time I checked....nope, still none for K-WU. That's after two decades, of course, and a fake "move" out of California to avoid the very thing you tout as K-WU's mark of legitimacy.

"Licensed," not "liscenced." Get used to it. I imagine K-WU's alums have to spell that a lot when rationalizing the source of their degrees. (Another K-WU alum with a Ph.D. routinely spells it that way, too. Perhaps it is taught?)

 

Re: Re: My Experiences

Liscensed... licensed. Why yes you are correct Rich. Thank you for pointing that out for me. I have not realized that I still continue to do this deed. I shall endeavor to correct this by putting it on my check list for misspelled or misused words. I often spell form when I mean from also. Please point that out to if you see it.

By the way... I was mispelling this word since I was 13 years old which is long before I ever attended KWU so they are not responsible. However, I shall still endeavor to correct this situation since I do not wish to cast a negative aura over KW with my personal deficiences

Regards,

Dick

 

Re: My Experiences

The Wyoming state licence is meaningless when it comes to schools. As a matter of fact that is why KWU stopped using their California address and started using Idaho so they could avoid any oversight. It's also why they moved their address again to Wyoming, to find a place that had lax laws so that fraud enforcement couldn't close them down. Also please note that the US DOE did not declare that states have degree granting authority. Actually it is a fall out of the Constitution where it says that unless specifically stated otherwise in the constitution the authority rests with the states.

Regarding the claim to 37,000 students at KWU, is this public information? Can you point me to where this information is available?

 

Lest my "liscense" comment seem too snippy, I'll offer the following confession: I've misused several words over the years posting here and elsewhere, only to be corrected or find out myself that I'm wrong. Three come immediately to mind:

Penultimate. I meant "ultimate."
Abrogate. I thought it was synonymous with "abandon." No.
Proscribe. I tought it was similar to prescribe, but it seems more like an antonym.

I still have trouble with "i before e," especially with people's names. And because I'm a self-taught typist, I transpose letters all the time.

Oh, and I open more parentheses per capita than anyone on the planet. More than a few never get closed.

Subject/verb disagreement? I are sometimes guilty there, too.


(BTW, I didn't use anyone's name; I just referred to a K-WU Ph.D.)

 

I, too, will doubt the validity of the 37,000 enrollment figure until I see it from a credible source.

According to K-WU, most of its students complete their degrees in one year or less. Each pays thousands of dollars during that time. Even if only half stick around to pay it, that means K-WU's revenues approach $100 million. I doubt it, but then again, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence regarding K-WU's sales to Asians.

How does this school support 37,000 students? At a 25 to 1 student/teacher ratio, K-WU would have a faculty of 1,480. Show me that list and I'll buy the 37,000 figure.

 

The Only KW Doctorate in Town!!

No offense taken Rich but I do seem to be the only K-WU Ph.D. holder on this forum that seems to want to admit to that fact....

I write procedures as part of my daily life so I do take spelling seriously and I always attempt to clean up my act since others are quick to note my errors.

Regards,

Dick

 

AMazing Nunbers (?)

I originally quoted that figure. It appeared in a post from the moderator in the KW Pub forum. The 37,000 is the total number of students who have enrolled at KW since KWs start in April of 1984 thru June of 1999. It is not a statment of the current active student population. I made a posting on the Pub title "How Popular Is Your Degree Part 2". The graduations cover a period from the week of 19Dec01 through 10July02. If you care to crunch some numbers and make the assumption that absolutely everyone who enrolled during an 18 month lagging time frame actually graduated, you can come up with the moving average for the period and project total average annual enrollment. The post will enable you to come up with the weighted average for the various levels of degree enrollment. At this point you should be fairly close in the ball park as to the current level of enrollement as well as revenue bucks. The graduation data came from KW's weekly newsletter.

As far as Asian and Russians go... During this period, one degree was granted to a student in Hong Kong.

Your statement of one year or less for degree completion is not in agreement with school policy. Policy states that the student must complete a 1 year time frame as a minimum requirement. The student has a maximum of 18 months to complete their program prior to being assessed extensions for continuing enrollment.

I suppose some will charge that this is just another tactic to fleece the students. However, one 6 month extention is granted free of chage. The written paper requirement is typically what hang up the student. About 45% of the proposals are returned for revision. Yes Rich this is KWs statistic. So I suppose in your book, this is just another trick tactic to look rigorous. However, it is the student's faculty advisor that causes papers to be revised, not the staff. I know of no one claiming to have graduated in less than one year.

Regards,

Dick

Yes... edited for typos.... Dick

 

Re: The Only KW Doctorate in Town!!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Dick

I'd like to say (as a school teacher) that I appreciate the controlled tone (not that we necessarily agree) of your posts despite any deficits in spelling.

Were one to look upwards, eg, evincing that typos or spelling errors can even be the unhappy products of those with accredited PhDs, one would see that Dr John Bare mispelled my name Bill "Gover"

 

[John: As I have mentioned from time to time, the fake school that I put in Bears' Guide each edition to help protect the copyright was, one year, Karma University, which offered past-life hypnotic regression, and then awarded full credit for all past-life experiences.

The scary thing was how many readers took it seriously. [/B][/QUOTE]

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Maybe Karma U is fake in this life but not in my past one;I held from it ,then, the BA, MA,and PhD in Charlatanical Studies!

 

Re: Re: Twisting at the End of a Rope

The terminology I used was intended to convey my overall opinion of KWU rather than an attempt at sparking any inflamatory response. After all it appears that 83% of KWU students paid their tuition but didn't earn a degree. Why do I call them victims?

1. I presented a thread from the KWU forum that indicated that KWU dragged their feet when requested for tutorial assistance. I suspect that KWU has to pay the instructors extra for this so I'm not surprised that they're sometimes reluctant to spend additional monies.
2. More importantly, I've been told that to earn a KWU degree the student is supposed to complete about the last year of classes for that degree. That would seem to indicate that many "victims" simply don't have the prerequisite classes needed to succeed.

Other possible reasons that at least 83% of KWU students are nothing more than victims.

3. As John Bear pointed out, some probably realized that a KWU degree has minimal utility anyway so just dropped out.
4. A certain percentage are always going to drop out for some reason or another that has nothing good or bad to do with KWU.

Here's the reasons that a good percentage of the 17% of KWU graduating students are nothing more than victims.

5. An unaccredited degree has minimal utility.
6. A traditional problem with unaccredited degrees is that when the degree mill goes out of business, it is no longer possible to get degree verification.

Regarding your economic analysis of KWU financial motives, here's mine. What is the profile of the most profitable student from the KWU perspective? I submit that the most profitable victim is one that talks to the admissions officer for the shortest amount of time, sends in their tuition and is never heard from again. This is the financial model that KWU lives with. Get the money up front. At that point what is the best way to improve profits? Reducing costs, of course. Let those "students" dance at the end of a rope for a short time then eventually as they're just twisting in the wind, it's all profit from then on.

Your statement about education is true. Education is a valuable commodity. For others to have a belief that the possible employee has the expected education they typically will require an accredited degree. Your implied statement is that KWU does educate. You may note and I admit that I have not addressed that issue. That issue is almost irrelevent because KWU has so many other more important problems.

Regarding you being a real person, I agree and hasten to add a fine real person that writes most delightful posts.

 

If the 37,000 figure is over the lifetime of the school, fine. That's probably in the ballpark, and I have no reason to doubt it. But it still shows how many students this little, unaccredited, fast-moving school has served (serviced?) over the years.

As for graduation times, I benefit from having read their materials since their inception. They were a clone--at least on paper--of Columbia Pacific University, and every other state-authorized DL school in California. IIRC, they had minimum times below one year.

In looking through the current catalog (received in June 2002), I don't see a minimum time-in-program requirement. One would expect that. I see the fee charged for those staying longer than 18 months, however. I would also note that there is no accredited doctoral program that would permit a student to finish his/her studies in 18 months, much less a year. Yet K-W's expectation is that you will take no longer than 18 months. Hence the additional charge assessed at that point.

 

Well you have a more recent catalog than mine. The one year minimum was actually in the contract language I signed at the time I became a victum( just kidding Bill I do have a bit of a sense of dry humor )

In chatting with earlier graduates, the programs have changed a lot from the old CPU model. Proctored Exams ....3hrs for Doctorate and 2 hrs for the rest have been instituted. Some of the doctoral student have been around for longer than 2 years. I don't know if I am an exception or not.. I have been working on my research since 1983. The program gave me the focus I needed to get it down to brass tacks and put it on paper for commercial application.

Apparently the progams have changed a lot but not the KW attitude toward accredidation. ABET has been active in promoting DL based applications and the program in Engineering Management would not require much tweeking to get it ready. All they need to do is change some coursework requirements to expand into more stochastic related cousework and make the added courses mandatory instead of optional. I would like to see them spin off the graduate programs to a seperate entity and seek accredidation. However, I don't think it is going to happen in my lifetime. The policy of KWU taking "input" and not wishing to involve a student govenment body has been made clear. I say this because on the student website for the last two years,they have posted a Student Government page that has been "Under Construction - Check Back Soon" for the past two years. The higher cost argument doesn't hold water with me. I would have been willing to pay some additional course work fees but certainly not the $30,000 level Walden ask me to pay.


At any rate, Rich I do hope you will share your research at Union with us.

Regards,

Dick

 

Another note regarding the 37,000 alumni. Union Institute and University graduates about 250 learners per year. That would be about 6,500 over the last 25 years or so. These numbers are not exact, but reasonably accurate to illustrate the difference. UIU is a well-established, accredited university with more than 80 faculty members. Yet, its graduation load is tiny compared to K-WU's claims. What gives?

UIU currently has about 1,200-1,500 learners (or so). Among 80 or so faculty, that gives a ratio of about 15:1. Full-time faculty can have as many as 30 learners, while part-time (not adjunct, another category) have fewer. But these are reasonable numbers. How can anyone take Kennedy-Western seriously when they graduate the numbers they claim?

For the record: Kennedy-Western is not a university. It is not recognized as such by any authority. It is a business posing as a university. As a human resources professional for the past 25 years in the public and private sectors, not only would I opt not to recognized a Kennedy-Western degree, I would react negatively to the candidate who presented one. C'mon. This is such bull!

 

A most delightful chuckle only slightly diminished by the caveat (but better safe than sorry). I was hoping that I could also thank you for not attacking my spelling of "victim" but after checking Webster, I nixed that plan.

Regards,

 

RA Schools are Businesses Too!

I know many private RA schools that are also businesses, Look at Unversity of Pheonix, and the Bill Boards All over the place: NYC, Philly, DC, etc.

I feel that many can not accept, that a K-W education is precieved favorably, and that they have had 37K students. Face the facts - they garduate more and are more successful than your RA school. it wouldn't suprise me if RA scholls started to emulate.

K-W is a state liscenced post secondary educational institution, and have as much right to grant degrees as any RA school. If I chose their program, then i am in good company.

 

Re: RA Schools are Businesses Too!

Does K-WU have the right to issue degrees? Sure. But that doesn't mean those degrees will be recognized in any particular situation.

I sign 30-40 autographs a day. No one takes 'em, but I sign 'em!
Rodney Dangerfield

With whom will you be in good company by enrolling at K-WU?

 

Re: RA Schools are Businesses Too!

Congratulations RJT, I don't believe that you lied in this post. (Although you did strain the truth.) This is great progress for you and I wanted to make sure that you received some positive reinforcement for it, so keep up the improvement!

You are plain wrong if you think that I don't accept the fact that many perceive the K-W education favorably. It is a well known fact that degree mill graduates have a strong tendency to grossly overestimate their education compared against an accredited education. K-W is not accredited simply because their degrees are well below standard. I have seen an incompetent fool claim to have earned a Ph.D. and as proof he pulled out a 5 or 7 page book report and said that it was his dissertation. He argued (like you) that his degree was fully earned. As a matter of fact this warping of reality is one of the things that I find so amusing about the "degree mill scene".

Regarding your emulation comment, I challenge you to name ONE thing good that K-W does that isn't already being done by an RA school. I admit that degree mill operators can be very creative but their creativity is usually directed at avoiding fraud enforcement, e.g., moving their address from California, to Idaho, then to Wyoming. I'm so convinced that you won't be able to come up with even one example, I'll even do my gloating in this post to save me having to post again when you ignore my challenge.